Text Messages at Center of Rape Trial Testimony

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — In a case that came to light through social media, the second day in the trial of two high school football stars accused of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl was dominated by text messages unveiled Thursday by the prosecution, recounting the night of the alleged rape and the aftermath.

A state forensics investigator, Joann Gibb, methodically quoted from text messages that she said came from the phone of one of the defendants, Trent Mays, 17, and from the phones of friends and classmates. The messages described the inebriated girl as “dead” or as a “dead body” and stated that Mr. Mays acknowledged penetrating the girl with his fingers.

For the prosecution, the text messages were a way to project a real-time accounting of the night. Defense lawyers say that anything that happened between the girl and Mr. Mays and his co-defendant, Ma’lik Richmond, 16, was consensual.

Mr. Mays and Mr. Richmond were members of Steubenville High School’s powerhouse Big Red football program. They were charged days after photographs and social media postings involving the episode appeared online.

In one text message, Mr. Mays stated that he had had sexual intercourse with the girl. But in other texts, he denied it, according to the messages read by Ms. Gibb during her testimony.

Mr. Mays also texted that the girl “was like a dead body” and that he did not try to have oral sex with her because “she would have thrown up,” while denying that he drugged the girl and texting that he tried to take her beer away.

At one point, a friend texted to Mr. Mays, “You are a felon.”

The case has split many people in the town, with some saying the charges have been overblown and others saying that it reflects a culture of protection of the high school football team, which is often ranked as one of the best in Ohio.

A few of Mr. Mays’s texts described by Ms. Gibb suggested that Mr. Mays believed that his football coach, Reno Saccoccia, would protect him.

“I got Reno to take care of it,” Mr. Mays texted at one point. He added in another text, referring to the coach, that “I feel like he took care of it” and that “he was joking about it so I’m not that worried.”

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From left, Adam Nemann, a defense lawyer; Trent Mays; Ma’lik Richmond; and Walter Madison, another defense lawyer. The boys are charged with the rape of a 16-year-old girl last August.CreditPool photo by

Efforts to reach Mr. Saccoccia on Thursday night were unsuccessful.

The texts read from the witness stand by Ms. Gibb suggested that Mr. Mays and his friends grew concerned about how many pictures were being shared on social media, how the episode would affect his role on the football team, what the reaction would be from the girl’s father and, ultimately, that if charges were ever pressed, whether the authorities would examine Mr. Mays’s cellphone messages.

One text sent from Mr. Mays’s phone to an acquaintance stated that “if they press charges, they are going to look at all my texts,” according to the testimony of Ms. Gibb.

“Delete them,” the acquaintance responded.

On the witness stand, Ms. Gibb also described text messages suggesting that the 16-year-old girl did not know what had happened to her that night, and that she grew angry and vulnerable as she learned more.

“I wasn’t being a slut. They were taking advantage of me,” stated one text message sent from the girl’s phone, according to Ms. Gibb’s testimony.

To a friend of Mr. Mays, the girl wrote in another text message: “Who was there who did that to me?” She added, “You couldn’t have told them to stop or anything?”

On Wednesday, testimony underscored how much the case revolves around the prosecution’s argument that the girl was too drunk that night to consent to sexual relations with Mr. Mays and Mr. Richmond.

In an opening statement to Thomas Lipps, the Juvenile Court judge who is hearing the case without a jury, one of the prosecutors, Marianne Hemmeter, said that “the state doesn’t have to prove” that the girl was unconscious. Instead, she said, the case hinges on showing that the girl was so substantially impaired that she could not consent to sex and that the defendants exploited the knowledge of her impairment.

The defense team has sought to show that the girl, while under the influence of alcohol, was walking and talking and capable of making decisions that night.

“We don’t dispute that there was some level of intoxication,” said Adam Nemann, one of the defense lawyers, in an interview after the first day of testimony. “The question is, was she so intoxicated that she did not give consent?”

Testimony is expected to resume Friday morning. If convicted, Mr. Mays and Mr. Richmond could face confinement until they are 21.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Text Messages at Center Of Rape Trial Testimony. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe